On crazy signs

A few people around my neck of the woods have Confederate flags in their yard. Almost never will you see one displayed in a wealthy or middleclass person’s yard. Most folks who put up Confederate flags around here are clearly quite poor.  

One home around here with a Confederate flag up doesn’t even look like it’s fit to house people. The driveway is muddy, there are two mangy dogs that live in the woods forever tethered to a short leash, and the house (a run-down double-wide) looks like it could fold in and crush its inhabitants any second. In the window that faces the road, they’ve tacked up a Confederate flag.

I felt bad for them. They have practically nothing. And when I first noticed the flag, I thought, Well, at least they have that.  

I thought about all crazy signs: The “Armed crazy red neck lives here,” or the “Notice: If you are found here tonight, you will be found here tomorrow,” or even your basic “No Trespassing” sign. And it’s the same with all these signs: Well, at least they have that.

These people might be dirt poor and have next to nothing, but they do have the right to put up a crazy sign. One guy’s company’s CEO might be making 200 times more than he is, but hell, he can still raise a flag that’s offensive to most black people. His truck might need a new transmission, his unemployment might be running out, and he may be losing custody of his daughter, but hell, he can still put up a big, mean sign up in his yard that no one can legally take down.

The erection of a crazy sign validates a person’s existence as a free person. While that person does not have much and cannot do much, he can at least use and stretch his First Amendment rights as far as they will go. To get this sense of validation, he can’t just put up a mild “This is me using my First Amendment rights” sign; rather, he has to say something fucking crazy: he has to warn people that they’re going to get shot for placing their pinky toe on his property, or about how everyone should “Fear God,” or he might just post a giant picture of a dead fetus. To get a worthwhile sense of validation, you have to be bat shit crazy about what sort of sign you put up.

Surely there are some people who raise their Confederate flags for reasons other than a mere expression of their First Amendment rights. And surely there are people who have many good reasons for posting “No Trespassing” signs. But I think many people who post crazy signs do so out of desperation. They likely have inadequate social lives, they probably play no role whatsoever in their government, and they probably feel small, weak, and rundown. Because so many feel powerless and alienated by their government (aren’t we all to some extent?), posting a crazy sign may be some people’s only chance at participating in the marketplace of ideas. But the truth is, no one cares or reads about these signs. We either agree with it, or think, wow, that guy’s a whacko.

So the sign really isn’t doing anything to help this person participate in his society. Rather, if anything, it only reinforces his belief that he doesn't need society, broadcasting to passersby that he is a hardy individualist whose beliefs are not to be trifled with.

But individuals are not sovereign. Only citizens are. The individual rejects society, but still ends up, in large part, playing by society’s rules. The citizen, rather, has an important, albeit small, say in the making of those rules.

The cause behind the crazy signs might not just be poverty and the resulting sense of powerlessness, but the failure or corruption of the sign bearer’s local democracy. If a place doesn’t offer a sufficient forum for democratic participation (and there’s little debate about our powerlessness on the federal level), then a man must go to absurd lengths to feel validated as not just a free person, but a person--someone whose opinions matter and whose beliefs are respected. The sign is a desperate cry for democracy. 

Sadly, the sign accomplishes nothing; it's a passing blip through the passenger window, as fleeting and offensive and meaningless as an Internet troll's message board comment, put there not to add to the debate, but just to be heard.